This bunch had split, and most of the discipline was in the camp that had the mountain man. I don't mean one of those trappers, like pa and Kit Carson or Bridger--they came later. I mean a man who had lived in the mountains before and knew how to get along.
"Orrin," I said, "we'd better be lookin' down that trail. We're about to run out of time."
"We'll do it together," he said. "I wish Tyrel was with us."
" 'If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride,'" I quoted at him. "A body shouldn't heed what might be. He's got to do with what is.
"There's a whole lot of mountain here, and you and me packed a rifle over mountains before either of us was knee-high to a possum. Anyway, it does no good to pack up an' run. A body has to stay in there and fight. No matter how many times you get knocked down you got to keep gettin' up until the other man quits."
"Easier said," Orrin commented.
"Well, I knew of a man who was defeated by just about everything. He failed in business back in 1831. He was defeated for the legislature in 1832, failed in business again in 1833, was elected to the legislature in 1834. His sweetheart died in 1835. He had a nervous breakdown in 1836, was defeated for speaker in 1838, defeated for land officer in 1843, defeated for Congress in 1843, elected to Congress in 1846, defeated for reelection in 1848, defeated for the Senate in 1855, defeated for vice-president in 1856, and defeated for the Senate in 1858."
"I'd of quit," Orrin said.
"No you wouldn't. I know you too well. This man didn't quit either. He was elected president in 1860."
"What?"
"Sure. His name was Abraham Lincoln."
Chapter XVII
Our camp was about a mile from Nell's. She had located not far from Silver Falls, and we were down creek from her just beyond the beaver ponds.
Tinker was back at camp when Orrin and me dropped down off Treasure Mountain.
"She's all right," he told us. "Anybody who'd take after her with that animal about would be crazy. All the time I was there he watched every move I made and growled if I got too close to her."
"She pannin' today?"
"Some--showing some color, too. Not much, but if she can stay with it in that cold water she'll come out with a stake."
"It's better than huntin' that gold. Why, this here mountain must cover thirty-square miles! There's no tellin' where they hid the stuff, and a man could work his life away and come up empty."
Orrin filled his cup. "Tell? What do you think we should do? We've found no clue to pa. If you're right and that other party went west, he might have done the same, if he got out."
"He must've lived. There's still a few pages of the daybook covered with writin'. But what he was wishful of us knowing he'd guard somehow. We've got to read carefully. I say we read what he says, and then we should work that mountain one time more. You know, pa knew the country west of here. He told us about time spent on the Dolores River."
We ate, and then we brewed some fresh coffee. Just as I'd gotten out the daybook we heard an animal coming and eased back from the firelight.
A voice called out of the darkness, "Hello, the fire! I'm coming in!"
It was Nell Trelawney astride that mule Jacob, with Neb trailing alongside. "I got lonesome," she said, "seeing your fire. I decided to come along down."
"Set down. We're about to read from pa's daybook. We've got to listen sharp for a clue."
... drew my knife and waited. Nobody come. After awhile I crawled out of the brush, and then I was shamed. That bullet done me no harm. It must have hit something before me. Anyway, it hit my belt and tomahawk handle, nigh cutting the belt in two, gouging the handle, and bruising my hipbone.
Nobody was around. I crawled to Pierre and he was still alive. Working in the dark I got his wounds stopped up with moss and eased him where he lay.
Two days have passed. At daybreak I set both of Pierre's legs in splints. Doubt if he will ever walk if he lives. Made a travois with two poles, two buffalo coats. Put bottoms of coats together, ran the poles through the arms of each coat, then buttoned the coats and managed to get Pierre on it.
The horses had disappeared, whether taken or driven off I didn't know. Andre and Swan had taken all the food but the little I had in my gear, and I'd little to do with.
Taking up the ends of the two poles, I started out. It was a slow business.
Pierre was hurting and the trail narrow. By nightfall I'd reached the spring near Windy Pass. I figured to hit the valley of the West Fork of the San Juan and follow the San Juan.
I am writing this beside the spring at Windy Pass. We have had a little to eat.
Pierre says Andre fears Philip, but shot Pierre not only because of hate, but because he wished to inherit. "He will be fooled," Pierre said. "I left all to Philip."
We are somewhat sheltered here, but the wind is cold. It has the feel of snow from the high peaks.
"Is it not late for snow?" Judas asked.
"Not in these mountains. He's nigh the end of May, but he's ten thousand feet up. I've seen bad snow storms in the Rockies later than that."
"We get only a part," the Tinker said. "He does not say how bad it is. He has drawn that travois, with a heavy man and all they have, more than six miles in one day."
Pa was never one for carryin' on about his hurts, but he had him a badly bruised hipbone, and haulin' the travois must have been a trial for a man of his years, even one as bull-strong as he was.
Just why pa chose the western route I wasn't sure--the first of it was easier, and also Andre and Swan had gone the other way and pa might have thought they'd be lyin' in wait to see if they were followed.
Right below the spring where pa stopped with Pierre, only about two miles away, was the valley of the West Fork of the San Juan, and a lovely valley it was.
I could picture them, Pierre lyin' there suffering in his pain, pa tired as all get-out what with pullin' a load at a high altitude and his hip bothering him and all. I'd had a few badly bruised bones, once from a bullet, another time when a bronc pitched me into some rocks, and the last time when a steer flung his head around and hit me with a horn.
The fire would be flickerin' on their faces, drawn and tired as they were, and right behind them the shadows of rocks and trees.
Orrin took up reading again. He had a better voice than me, and he made a better thing of it.
Pierre is at last asleep, which gives him relief. I have gathered wood for the night and the morning fire. My hip is bothering me, and I'm afraid it will stiffen during the night. I have been thinking much of ma and the boys, wondering if ever they will see these words, if ever they will know what has become of me. They are good boys, and will grow strong and tall. I wish I could be there to see them, but tonight I feel no confidence. A growing thing is in me, not a fear of Andre or of Utes, not even a fear of death, only a fear I shall not see them again.
I was awakened by muttering from Pierre. The man was delirious, and I worried. I looked at him in the fire's red light, and he looked wildly at me and muttered about Philip. I made hot broth and managed to get some of it into him, but he talked wildly of poison, of the death of his father, of some thin red line that ran through the Baston line, and a lot that made no sense to me.
June 2: Camp on the West Fork. Pierre in bad shape. His legs in splints, but nothing more I can do. They are in frightful shape. Several times he has thanked me for staying by him.
June 3: Same place. No more than 15 miles from where we started. Ute tracks, some unshod horses, nothing fresh. I must have fires to heat water. Hot water on his legs seems to ease him somewhat. The coffee is almost gone.
June 4: Pierre is dead! Went to the river for water and returning found him dead, stabbed three times in the heart. It was no Indian, for nothing was taken, not the coffee or the sugar, nor powder or lead.
Andre or Swan? I dare have no fire now. I shall bury Pierre, gather my few things, and take to the woods. I have just seen three of our horses grazing a little way downst
ream! I believe they will come to me for I always had something for them. I shall go now, and try.
That was the end of it. No more. Pa had gone to try for those horses.
"Nativity Pettigrew," I said. "He had the daybook. How did he come by it?"
"Maybe he was the one who murdered Pierre," the Tinker suggested. "Maybe when your pa went after the horses he came back, stole the book, and took off. You recall what your pa said? Pettigrew suspected him of writing things down? That daybook must have worried him."
"We've got to find that camp. That may be the last lead we get."
We sat around the fire talking it over, drinking coffee, keeping our ears in tune with the night. I was restless, ready to move on. A lot of men had looked for gold here and not found it, and I did not wish to become another of them.
Nor did Orrin.
In the morning we would take the route to Windy Pass.
At first Nell would have none of it, but we argued there was gold closer to where her pa was. I think we all turned in figuring that tomorrow would tell us the end of the story of pa's disappearance.
None of us wanted a fight with Andre and them. Well, I'll have to back up on that. Fact was, I'd not mind so much, only that it would profit nobody. I had an itch to tangle--especially with Swan. There's something gets up in my craw when I come up against a bully, and Hippo Swan was that.
There was nothing to be gained by fighting them, and I was ready to ride off and leave them be. Just the same, I felt one of the true pleasures of life would be to plant a fist in Hippo's face. But I was prepared to deny myself that pleasure.
Some things just don't shape up the way a man hopes for.
Come morning we packed our gear, and we helped Nell get straightened around, and then we headed for Windy Pass as our first stop on the way west to Shalako.
Looking back with regret, I saw that little mountain valley disappear behind us.
It was a place we'd stopped at for only a few days, but I'd come to love it--the beaver ponds, the distant sound of Silver Falls, the cold, sparkling waters of the East Fork.
There was an easier trail down the East Fork to the main valley, but we were wishful of scouting around the pass, so we went up the mountain. It was just a mite over two miles to Windy Pass.
We found signs of several old fires up yonder, but nothing more to tell us anything about pa. He'd been there, but so had others.
Orrin pulled up quick, just as we started out. "I thought I heard a shot," he said. I'd heard nothing, but Judas believed he had, too.
We rode out on the trail to the valley and turned south. To really appreciate the valley of the West Fork of the San Juan you've got to see it from north of where we were, up yonder where the Wolf Creek Pass trail takes a big swing and starts down the mountain. There's a place there that's a thousand feet above the valley floor. You can see right down the length of the valley and there isn't a prettier sight under heaven.
We turned into the trail and started along, moving at a good pace. We had Nell with us, and, like I've said, we weren't shaping up for no fight. None of us liked Andre. We figured him for a murdering so-and-so, but we weren't elected by the good Lord to put out his light ... not so far as we knew. I surely wasn't going to hunt him, but if he happened to come up in my sights, it would be a mighty temptation.
It was a beautiful morning, a morning to ride and feel, and we all felt the same about that. None of us were much given to talk, although Orrin could sing. He sang while we rode--"Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp-Ground," "Black, Black, Black," and "Barbry Alien." I was wishful of joining him when he sang "Brennan on the Moor," but there was no use to wake the coyotes or disturb the peace of Jacob, the mule. Only time I sing is when I am alone on a sleepy horse. There's limits to everything.
Meanwhile, we rode wary for pa's camp. A lot of time had gone by, but there was a chance we could find something.
The way we figured it now, somebody had returned to murder Pierre and pa.
Andre and Swan? Or Pettigrew?
I couldn't get Nativity Pettigrew out of my mind. He was a sly man, a murderous man possibly, but he'd had the daybook, and the only way he could have gotten that daybook would have been to follow pa and Pierre.
Pettigrew had gold on his mind, and mayhap he had found it, and was wishful of keeping it. He would have to be mighty shy of how he brought it down off that mountain. A lot of people wish to find treasure, but few of them realize how hard it is to handle after you've got it.
How do you bring a million dollars in gold down off a mountain? Mules, you say?
You've got to get mules or horses, and that starts people wondering what you want them for. And you may need help, but help can be greedy, often as murderous as you.
I tell you, gold is easier found than kept.
Chapter XVIII
Neb scouted ahead for us, and that was a canny dog. He was big enough to be kin to a grizzly and had a nose like an Arkansas coonhound.
We rode scattered out, not talking, wary for traps because this was Indian country, but wary for those coming down behind us, too. Pa's travois would have made an easy trail to follow, and I wondered if he, too, had feared what was behind him. When we came up to his camp we saw why he'd chosen it. That camp was well out in the open, among just a few trees and some brush, and there was a good field of fire wherever a body looked.
Of course, at first we weren't sure it was pa's camp. It was a likely spot, and there were stones blackened by fires in a clearing among the trees. We got down from our horses and, while the Tinker kept a lookout, we stood around and sized up the situation.
Nell found the grave. She had walked to the other side of the small clearing among the trees. It was there, south of the patch of woods and a small knoll.
Only one grave. Above it was a cross and the name, Pierre Bontemps.
Pa had walked away from here when he saw the horses, and that might be any place to the south, but he saw them from here. He'd made no mention of burying Pierre, so he must have come back ... but Pierre's killer could have buried him. And suppose pa lay in the same grave?
Neither Orrin nor me figured such would be the case, but scattered out around that little nest of trees to see what we could find. Others had been here since, and there would be nothing left unless pa had left some sign intentionally, or unless there was some item time had not destroyed.
We found nothing.
"Tell," Orrin said, "you were a mite older than any of us, and you knew pa a little better. What do you think he would have done at this point?"
"Whoever killed Pierre may have killed him," the Tinker suggested. "He may have laid by those horses waiting for your father."
Judas objected. "That is a possibility, of course. But it seems to me that whoever killed Mr. Bontemps was not one to take chances. He stabbed a wounded, helpless man three times. I believe he would prefer to wait, to catch Mr.
Sackett asleep or somehow helpless."
"The way I see it, Orrin," I said, "knowin' the kind of man pa was, why he came west and all, I think, once he had the horses and no longer had to worry about Pierre, he'd go back after some of that gold."
"I think he did go back," Nell said.
"Well, maybe," I said doubtfully. "I think he would, but we don't know if he did."
"I know," Nell repeated. "I am sure he went back."
"Why?" Orrin asked.
"I think when he left the second time, having some gold and all, and remembering what happened to Mr. Bontemps, I think he would take another route," she said.
"These mountains offer very few roads," Judas objected, "and this is the best way, obviously."
"And the most dangerous. Best routes never meant much to a mountain-born Sackett, anyway," she insisted. "I want to tell you something.
"Just east of Silver Falls I found an old Indian trail. It heads off south along the shoulder above Quartz Creek. When I first settled in there to pan that creek I studied the country in case I had to run. I scoute
d that trail across the high-up mountains until I could see where it led.
"It goes right to Pagosa Springs, although there's a branch, looks like, that swings south. I've got a feeling it joins up with a trail I saw coming in from the south at Haystack Mountain."
It surely made sense. Pa was never one to set himself up for somebody, and if he now had some gold he would be doubly in danger. He'd keep off the main trails, use routes where he could find cover from which to study his back trail, and he'd head west.
If anybody was lying in wait it would be along the trail east. Folks at San Luis might have talked, and there were always bad men around who'd lie up for a man and try to gather in what he had.
Pa had wintered out west and he liked that country. If he had taken his gold that way he could come by an unexpected way and likely would avoid trouble.
Still, any man packing gold was sure to be an uneasy man.
Seemed to me the only thing to do now was to cut out for Shalako, scout around there and talk to some of the Utes who might know something. Mighty few people travel through Indian country without being seen, and it was likely the Utes knew all that had taken place around Treasure Mountain--if they'd talk.
We headed west, rattling our hocks down the trail for Shalako. We knew that our cousins Flagan and Galloway had settled in that neighborhood a short time back, and we figured to meet up with them, then get our bearings. Galloway was a great hand to make friends, and chances were that he had Indian friends among them.
We Sacketts have fought Indians, camped with them, hunted with them, told stories with them, slept in their tipis and wickiups, and fought with them again. Sometimes all was friendly, depending on the tribe and how they felt at the moment. Pa had lived with Indians, too, and favored their way of life, and, of course, back there in the high-up hills of Tennessee and North Carolina, we'd had many a friend among the Cherokee, Shawnee, or Chickasaws.
They had their way of life and we had ours, and when the white man moved in he did just what the Indians had done before him. He took what land he needed.
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